ATC studio monitors

Off topic (apologies)

Merlin,

I've the change to buy a s/h pair of Dynaudio Crafft (three years old from first owner for about EUR 1.700, maybe a litte less). Since you seem to know these, would you think that the front-ported design will make their room placement easier?
Other option would be a new pair (rear-ported) Contour 1.4 (after home demo), but am very curious about the Craffts.

Thanks for the help.
Erik

 

Paul, I wasn't asking our *ahem* expert to compare them, these differences you mention is what I was getting at chalk and cheese, I prefer one, some prefer the other, but neither correct, jsut different flavours. Read the posts properly next time.

Merlin, fact!, sheesh the arrogance, ok if YOU say so.

 

Eric,

in my experience, the tuning frequency of a port (and it's interraction with your primary room resonances) is far more important than the orientation.

Sadly I don't know what the ports on both of those speakers are tuned to (you could probably ask the manufacturer), but if you can find out, try to compare this with the results from the Cara room simulator and see if the port tuning corresponds with one of your room resonances.

I would say, from past experience, that the Crafft (which employs the D330 tweeter) is the better allround speaker, provided you have the amplification to drive them.

 

It's a shame people don't use valve pre's with the atc's before jumping to a conclusion about their 'sound'. IME your only hearing the front end electronics through the ATC's. Some have great trouble understanding this. A valve pre sounds energetic & live with double the bass output of a ca2. In certain situations, yes, it IS possible to make the ATC's sound unispiring. However, it is also possible to make them sound truly awesome.

Unless you've heard the ATC 50's or larger with a valve pre your opinion isn't worth the reading time. However, we all have differing opinions as already made abundantly clear. Just listen and experiment. Forget graphs, numbers and bs. Make up your own minds and ignore the internet experts.

 

You actually wrote: 'I did recently AK and I'm afraid to say they did not impress me given their horrendous cost. I would accept that they are reasonably uncoloured but to my ears, the seperate drive units just did not gel into one cohesive and believable whole in the way some of their competitors do.'

Which is a statement of opinion rather than a statement of fact, which is proven by your choice of words ('they did not impress me' and 'to my ears'). Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but it is of itself no more or less valid than anyone else's.

That is what this whole thread is about; does the measured performance of speakers matter as much/the same/less than one person's opinion of how they sound?

Unless of course you are just trolling.

 

Thanks for this Merlin.

I do not have a Cara simulator so have to find out with a home demo (the seller is willing to bring the speakers over for this).

Amp is MF 308 (integrated) BTW.

 

No Joe, it is a FACT that I was unimpressed and also a FACT that to my ears they did not gel. So my comments are factual - now can we all go into class now?

 

But can you prove that you were unimpressed? Do you have any measurements of the extent to which your ears picked up the non-gelling nature of the aforementioned speakers?

 

Yes. I didn't buy them.

 

So do you buy everything that impresses you?

 

Yes

 

I concede!

 

Experience suggests merlin does, indeed, buy everything that impresses him

-- Ian

 

hmm, Glad i have not impressed him.

 

I'm loving it - although I can't prove it.

 

I slightly lost track of this thread, or perhaps I lost interest but anyway I was looking for something in Google Groups and came across this post from Bob Ludwig who is a giant in the mastering world, and uses (or at least used) the active ATC50s at home and the larger ones at work:



Bob Ludwig Nov 25 1997, 3:00 am show options
Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
From: "Bob Ludwig" <[email protected]> - Find messages by this author
Date: 1997/11/25
Subject: Re: Opinions Wanted Re: ATC20 & ATC50 Active Monitors
Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse

Dear Gregory,

I use the ATC50s at home and I like them a lot.
At our studio we use the ATC100s (a larger more rugged version) in
our editing/CD preparation room. We use a sub-woofer with the ATC
100s in the studio, at home I haven't felt the need for one.
Generally, I found the ATC 50s a more perfectly balanced speaker, but
the 100's have withstood hour after hour of use in a professional
edit room with no component replacement needed in almost 5 years.
Clients like them a lot, too.

Bob Ludwig
President
Gateway Mastering Studios, Inc.
--

As I mentioned earlier in the thread (many pages ago), Bob now uses Eggleston Works speakers in his mastering studio. But the fact that ATCs were good enough for his use both at home and at the studio suggests to me that they are probably less problematic speakers than some on this thread seem to think.

Andrew

 

This does tend to blow 3d-bollix's earlier nonsense away.

 

Hi,

Hmmm. In 1997 (8 Years ago) they used ATC, then they upgraded to Egglestone Works, which are fully passive Speakers with cone mids.... Clearly BL felt these where a significant upgrade, considering how much they cost. That rather underscores my point about ATC's, would you not think, if Cone Mids and passive speakers are better than active ATC's with their "special" Midrange Dome, that is rather abysimal, don't you think?

Ciao T

 

LMFAO

Excellent :lol: